by K A Riley
“That bloody rubbish back there in class…about this being just another Processor.”
“I don’t…”
“Don’t give me that crap. Sara was being a gormless, grade-A twat-waffle, and you and the others were right there, mucking along with her.”
“But I wasn’t…” Her lower jaw hanging open, Libra shakes her head as her eyes go wet and glossy.
“Since when did you get so chummy with Sara, anyway?” I ask through clenched teeth.
Libra blinks hard and curls her fingers around my wrists. She tugs my hands from her shoulders. “Branwynne, I wasn’t agreeing with Sara.”
Her voice sounds weird, and it occurs to me that she’s asking a question more than making a statement.
“Sure sounded like it,” I sigh, letting my tight jaw relax again. “Sounded like all of you had gone completely off your trolley.”
Libra offers up a weak, forced smile and starts to tug me along toward the Infirmary. “I guess a lot of things sound like a lot of things. Come on, now. Let’s go get you fixed up.”
Mayla greets us as we enter the Infirmary, and I hop up onto the mag-table so she can work her healing magic.
Standing next to me, Libra is all smiles again.
She laughs and says, “What?” when she catches me staring at her.
But I just shrug and tell her it’s nothing.
Only, I’m not so sure it is nothing. Something strange is going on, and I’m not convinced I’m the only one around here who needs healing.
18
Recruiting
A few days later, we all roll out of bed with a chorus of groans and with our bones creaking loud enough to hear across the room.
Alternative Weapons training and our Propaganda classes have been especially intense. Brohn’s been in an unforgiving mood lately, and I’m pretty sure Granden is trying to make our heads explode with this new unit he’s teaching us about rhetoric.
At least the weird squiffiness from the other day seems to have faded away, and we’re pretty much back to our normal routine of struggling to keep up in Granden’s class and to stay alive in Brohn’s.
Cohort B isn’t faring much better. Bleary-eyed, they meet us in the hallway, and the eleven of us trudge downstairs for breakfast where we eat in dreary, hypnotized silence.
Back upstairs, the Assembly Hall is dimly lit when we enter.
The normal banks of holo-lights running in long strips along the tops of the walls are smoky gray. The room is bathed in long shadows from the orange-hued backup emergency lights above the doors and by the faint-white reflective plasma lenses above the stage.
The curved stage of polished oak glows weirdly hot under the reddish-white light. I think it looks a little hellish, but Wisp and our teachers are all smiles and don’t seem to notice.
As they always do for Morning Address, Kress and the others are sitting in their semi-circle of low-backed silver mag-chairs. The chairs are designed to handle pretty much any weight, but Terk’s chair always hovers a little lower than everyone else’s.
As a Modified who’s had much of the left side of his body integrated with a network of circuit boards, cables, and synth steel pistons, he’s a lot heavier than he looks. And he already looks huge, with shoulders as wide across as I am tall.
Wisp and Granden are standing together—like they do most mornings—behind the thin podium of glass and chrome at the front of the stage.
Clearing her throat, Wisp says she has an important announcement. “Kress, Brohn, Rain, Terk, and Kella—the five members of the original Conspiracy—will be leaving for a while. War and Mayla, too.”
“Leaving?” The word is past the lump in my throat and out of my mouth before I realize I’ve said it.
“Not forever,” Wisp laughs. “They’re going on a mission.”
We all squirm in our seats, and I raise my hand and ask, “What kind of mission?”
Wisp slides a lock of hair behind her ear and grips the edges of the podium. I’m expecting some sort of apocalyptic revelation:
Maybe the warring factions down below have made their way up the mountain. Maybe the Veiled Refractor has gone to all to pot, and we’re about to be invaded. Maybe a massive drone strike is on its way…
Instead, Wisp scans us back and forth and tells us not to worry. “We still have allies out there.”
“And ravens,” Kress adds.
“Right. All helpful in gathering information. And there are reports—some have turned out to be myths, rumors, and false leads, but there’ve been some confirmed reports as well—of more Emergents, kids like you.”
Ignacio leans forward in his seat far enough so I think he might face-plant himself to the floor. “Emergents…with abilities?”
“Possibly.”
“Where?” Mattea asks, leaning nearly as far forward.
“Multiple places throughout the country, actually.”
“And the world,” Granden adds for emphasis. “Here. But also in Ghana. Sardinia. Greece. Turkey.”
Wisp nods her thanks to Granden before turning her attention back to us. “Our intel is sketchy, but we’re fairly sure some of the Emergents are scattered, imprisoned, or on the run. As you know, communication is a problem in the best of times. We’re working on that. In the meantime, we need to use the resources we have.”
“We think there may be a Processor west of here,” Granden tells us, his eyes shifting nervously between us and the ceiling. “Not all that far away, actually.”
Kress leans forward in her mag-chair, her arms draped over her knees. “A while back…after we escaped from our own Processor, we ran into a military outpost on our way to San Francisco. I had some…visions there.”
Libra thrusts her hand into the air. “Visions? What kind of visions?”
“Dead soldiers, right?” I ask. I’ve heard this story from Kress during some of our one-on-one, rooftop training sessions.
“That’s right,” she confirms for the rest of our two Cohorts. “Dead soldiers. A dead girl. It’s when my connection to Render started to jump into an evolutionary high-gear.”
Granden rubs his jaw. “Getting good information is challenging, to say the least. But between the tinkering Rain, Terk, and the Auditor have been doing upstairs with the rooftop Sensor Array and Kress’s surveillance with Render, we’ve gotten some pretty reliable intel that something big may be about to happen. We don’t know if it’s the facility itself, its location, or the people involved. But there’s a mystery out there, and it could have to do with all of you.”
“And possibly with why we are what we are,” Rain adds, looking practically microscopic in her seat between the giants, Terk and War.
Granden gives us a few more details, but there’s something off about him. Like he’s nervous or unsure.
And I don’t think I’ve ever seen Granden nervous or unsure.
“We have word about the possibility of a new coalition of True Blues—the East Coast faction of the Devoted—who could be working with the Deenays and the En-Gene-eers,” he explains. “The military base Kress and the others are going back to out here could be one of the ones being resurrected and repurposed as a home base for the next phase of a techno-genetic program designed to pick up where Krug’s experiments left off.”
“But Krug’s gone,” I remind him.
“True. But you aren’t.”
Brohn nods his agreement with Granden and sighs. “As long as there are potential Emergents out there, there are going to be groups like the True Blues, the Devoted, the Unsettled—you name it—who see them…who see us…who see you as something they can weaponize for their own ends. We need to find out what they’re up to. If they’re building a new Processor, if they’re trying to gather up kids like they did with us…”
Chace looks up from her holo-pad. “You really think there are kids out there?”
Kress nods. “According to Render, there may be as many as twenty or thirty. Only…”
Chace looks worried wh
en she asks, “Only…what?”
Kress and Brohn exchange an uneasy look of their own. When Brohn gives her the slightest nod, Kress reveals a horrifying element of their intel. “Some of the kids are most likely already dead.” Her eyes glisten and glaze over as she reports that Render has seen bodies in the desert near the military installation.
In the graveyard stillness hovering in the air, our two Cohorts sit for several seconds in stunned silence.
Libra repeats the word, “Dead.” I think she means it as a question, but it falls from her mouth like a stone.
“It’s possible that they were subjects. Like all of you were at one time or another.”
Not me, I think with pride. I’ve never been captured by anyone.
I almost raise my hand to remind her of that fact, but then I think better of it.
Instead, I do raise my hand, but it’s to ask if I can go with them. “I fought against the Unsettled with you. I helped half the people in this room escape from a Processor. I was there when we escaped from the Devoted down in New Haleck.”
I can tell Kress is suppressing an amused grin when she tells me, “Not this time, Branwynne.”
Everyone in her semi-circle is quick to agree.
“It’s too risky,” Kella says.
“And more dangerous and probably more vital than any other mission we’ve gone on before,” Brohn adds. “This could be the start of something very exciting and important…”
“Or it could wind up being the end of the road for a lot of innocents out there,” Rain finishes.
Wisp pushes up the sleeves of her oversized military jacket. “We’re not exaggerating when we tell you your mission is to save the world. There are some dangerous people building some big armies out there. Unless we want to work for them or else get killed by them, we need to continue to build one of our own.”
Crossing my arms and feeling sorry for myself for getting left behind, I lock eyes with Kress, but it’s Sara who asks with a snarly drawl, “So…you’re going to be recruiters?”
I’m sure she means it as an accusation, but Kress chuckles. “Ironic, right?”
Chace is back to being hunched over her holo-pad, tapping out text and taking her job of Chronicler way too seriously. She doesn’t even look up when she raises her hand. “Excuse me. But who’s going to teach us while you’re gone?”
“Wisp and Granden are going to stay behind.”
“Don’t worry,” Granden announces. “Tomorrow, we have some challenging activities for you and maybe a nice VR simulation after that.”
“Lots of fun and supremely dangerous challenges and combat situations,” Wisp adds. “A good chance to test what you’ve learned so far and to explore your limits.”
Next to me, Ignacio doesn’t look happy as his eyes drift over to Kress and her Conspiracy. “When do you leave?”
Brohn stands up, and the rest of the Conspiracy follows suit. “About now, actually.”
My eyes and mouth are competing over which can be wider open in shock. “Now?”
“We can’t afford to waste time. If the intel is accurate, we might already be too late.”
“For some of those kids,” Terk growls as he heaves himself to his feet, “it sounds like we already are.”
19
Leaving
We all follow Kress and the rest of our teachers downstairs to the Sub-Basement garage where Terk releases the Terminus from its mag-pad. The huge truck floats down, landing lightly on its thick, studded wheels.
The holo-lanterns hanging high overhead beam down shafts of warm, particle-filled light.
Silvery reflections glisten from the crisscross of steel support beams in the cavernous hangar where the Terminus and the Academy’s other transports—treadchairs, wide-wheeled grip bikes, motorized tri-blades, modified Skid Steers, snowmobiles, and grav-charged wing-gliders—hover on their own mag-pads in their individual glass-walled storage stalls.
Although it’s a strange and sad moment—after all, it’s not every day a girl gets abandoned by her mentor—I can’t wait to learn how to ride, drive, and fly all of those amazing vehicles!
As we look on, Kress and her Conspiracy cluster around a row of silver lockers and assemble their weapons, piling them up neatly in a hard-shell carrying case with multiple compartments.
“Is that all you’re taking?” I ask when I see the meager supply of weapons in the suitcase-sized tote.
“We need to ration our ammo,” War explains.
Slinging his arbalest onto his back, Brohn reminds us that weapons are getting harder and harder to come by. “Like I told you…the Wealthies have barricaded themselves in their Arcologies and have hoarded most of the firepower. That’s why it’s important for you all to continue your training with Wisp and Granden. It won’t be long before it’s just us and our Emergent abilities out there against a bunch of armies with homemade weapons and whatever guns are left.”
“What about rations?” Trax asks.
Kella gives his shoulder a light pat and tells him, “Already packed.”
Already packed? How long have they been planning this mission, anyway? And how come they’re only telling us about it now?
I feel my cheeks go hot. I’ve known Kress for over five years, and I’ve been working one-on-one with her practically every other day for most of it. She’s taught me more about how my abilities work. She’s taught me how to make better connections with Haida Gwaii and how to be a proper Ravenmaster for Render and Haida’s six offspring.
So how come in all of our talks and with all of our training, she kept something so big from me?
Wisp and Granden confer with Kress and the others for a minute or two while our two Cohorts mill around trying not to look scared.
Off to the side, Lucid and Reverie, their foreheads nearly touching, seem to be having their own mini-conference.
Next to me, Ignacio jabs his elbow into my side and points to the vehicles lined up in their stalls. “Can’t wait to try those, eh?”
“I was just thinking the same thing.” (If my brain had hands, right now, it’d be rubbing them together with glee.) “As soon as Kress and the others get back, I’m going to ask if we can get special training.”
From over my shoulder, Libra says she wants in, too. “War’s been teaching me how to fix them up, but he says he’s not ready to teach me how to ride them yet.”
Sara suggests we sneak down here sometime after Kress and the others are gone and take one or two of the specialized mountain vehicles for a spin. I laugh, but Mattea—probably the most strait-laced and play-by-the-rules conservative of us—says she’s in, too.
Even Arlo nods. “After Kress and the others leave, it’ll just be Wisp and Granden with us. We could be gone and back before they know we’ve left.”
I scowl at Sara and tell her what a terrible idea this is.
What is it with this girl, lately? Is her Emergent ability the skill to stir up trouble wherever she goes? If so, she’s getting jolly good at it.
Roxane nudges me as she slips past.
Barely loud enough for me to hear, she says, “Watch out.”
“Um…You bumped into me, Rox.”
Roxane’s eyes glisten, and she shakes her head. “Misunderstand.”
Already annoyed, I’m about to ask her what she’s on about this time, but Granden waves his hand and calls us over.
With their pre-departure discussion completed, our teachers climb into the Terminus with Kress and Render as the last ones aboard.
Like adoring fans clamoring around the tour bus of our favorite band, we all say our goodbyes, and Chace promises to keep chronicling everything that happens in the Academy.
Kella, her mentor, thanks her and tells her not to worry. Patting the long, black sniper rifle case in her hand, Kella says, “I’ll personally make sure we stay alive so your story will have a happy ending.”
Chace beams up at her and waves.
As everyone else from the two Cohorts cheers out the
ir last goodbyes and backs away, I linger by the side door of the Terminus.
“Take care of Haida and her brood,” Kress calls down to me from the open doorway where she’s standing with her hand on the grab bar next to the door. Render gives me a stern glare from her shoulder.
“I will,” I promise.
“And take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
“Most important, though, take care of the ones who can’t take care of themselves.”
I try to say, “I will” again, but the words lodge in my throat, and I wind up puckering my mouth open and closed like a dying fish.
Smiling, Kress retreats into the Terminus and slides the door shut behind her.
The massive truck grumbles to life. The front floodlights blast on, and the power and charging indicator lights along the back and sides of the giant vehicle flash red and white.
The huge, segmented silver panel on the far side of the garage grumbles up to reveal the long, dimly lit tunnel leading to the network of old mining shafts in the mountain.
I take a few big steps back to rejoin my classmates as the Terminus rumbles into the dark open jaws of the tunnel, and the giant silver panel rattles down behind it.
We’re all milling around like abandoned puppies when Wisp claps her hands together. “Okay. Go get some rest. All of you. Tomorrow, we’ll be throwing you into a series of competitive challenges and then into a VR combat sim after that. We’ll promise not to try to kill you if you promise to try not to die.”
And with that cheery thought bouncing around in our heads, we file out of the hangar and walk upstairs, anxious about being left alone and uncertain about what’s to come.
20
Glitches
At a bit of a loss, for the rest of the day, the eleven of us lie scattered around in the Lounge.
It’s not often we have a day off, although it doesn’t really feel like one.
I should be feeling relieved at having a pause in all the training we’ve been doing for the past months, but the emptiness of the moment is heavier than I expected.